At the End, It is a Matter of Respect

We all know that ethnography is the study of individual people or culture. According to Boellstorff, ethnography came from the culture they study. On his book, he also discussed what the ethnographers, the outsider (etic), and the insider (emic) are they doing, or what are their specific jobs. People came from different cultures, and a lot of ethnographers even some people who are not ethnographers are curious about someone’s background or culture. Studying ethnography will make us help to know their culture, their different points of view in life especially when we are using technology, and in the end, whether we like it or not, we need to respect it.

With the help of technology, it is easier to study ethnography nowadays. While studying ethnography is important, it is also well connected to consider the important method for analyzing virtual life. As we can see, there is always an update for different kinds of computers with the improved graphics capabilities and many more. Boellstorff indicated, “From the earliest world that allowed us to begin co-inhabiting virtual spaces to our contemporary moment in which the notion of having an avatar is fairly mundane, as visual world ethnographers we are interwoven with the technology: knowing its history is crucial to understanding its present” (27).

As time goes by, we are facing and experiencing different kinds of technology because people always make a new one, and they always update the technologies; in addition to that, people are encountering virtual life. A virtual life is a computer-based online which some people are depending on their life using technology. There are advantages and disadvantages of using technology, but in the end, we need to make sure if we are still on the right path of using technology. It is easier to interact with people through online especially when they are a thousand miles from each other.

Overall, a virtual life is a big help on studying an individual person or an individual culture. We will know all the information we need through conducting a research. Another thing is by interviewing the person, but if he/she is busy, there’s still another way to do it. That is through phone call or video call which is kind of virtual life. In the end, it’s still a matter of respect to one another which is important.

Source: Boellstorff, “Ch. 2: Three Brief Histories” and “Ch. 3: Ten Myths about Ethnography”